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Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS
I'll put the over/under at 3.5 lengths back to 3rd place behind the inevitable Derby quinella of I Want Revenge and Quality Road.
I'll put the o/u at 5.5 lengths back to 3rd behind Rachel Alexandra and Justwhistledixie for that inevitable Oaks quinella.
There's nothing at all left to analyze with either race. I simply see a pair of vastly superior horses in each race.
Every horse that will start in the Derby besides IWR and QR is a sucker bait underlay. Some a lot more so than others. They just have too much to improve over the next 3 weeks to get level .. and Mullins and Jimmy Jerkens are a pair of magicians.
Every horse that will start in the Oaks besides RA and JWD is running for 3rd.
Now that the good stuff is over and the sillyness starts ... like obsessions with workouts leading into the race .. hopefully a whole lot of horses from both races are working like monsters and look super duper fantabulous in the flesh.
Unexpected results can happen when the pace goes to an extreme .. (Lemons Forever last-to-first at 47/1) Giacomo (18th after 6fs to 1st at 50/1) but that won't happen in either race this year ... and neither pace should be a crawl either.
I don't have anything left to say about either race after that.
I just hope we get to hear large doses about how Pioneer of the Nile and Chocolate Candy are both relishing the track in super impressive works. How Dunkirk would have won the Florida Derby if it was fairly run. How Freisan Fire has won 3 Graded Stakes in a row and just buried an Arkansas Derby winner.
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I think your Oaks prognostication is very likely to occur... those two are just that much better than their counterparts and the field figures to be relatively compact. It isn't exactly going to be a stellar betting race (but as normal, the rest of the card will be chock full of opportunity.)
In the Derby, while I think it's greater than 50% that at least one of them runs in the exacta, there's just too many things that can go wrong to convincingly say both of them will be there. Right now, I think the correct strategy is similar to '06, take those two on top and wheel the horses that get lost on the board.
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Originally Posted by Travis Stone
I like this approach of knocking-out your handicapping now before reading about how every horse is working like a beast, and how if any horse is capable of running big this weekend it's him, or how the surface change looks like it'll be no problem when they open the gates yadda yadda yadda.
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Agree. It isn't a normal race, we know who is running, we know what they can do, and their likely physical condition already. The more nonsense they throw at you about this and that working like Secretariat just causes overanalysis. Spend the time on the Derby now, and worry about the rest of the card the week of.